The Scientific and Technical Review Panel of the Ramsar Convention was established by Resolution 5.5 (Kushiro, 1993) as a subsidiary body of the Convention to provide scientific and technical guidance to the Conference of the Parties, the Standing Committee, and the Ramsar secretariat. Its individual members are elected by the STRP Oversight Committee, based upon nominations from the Parties, on the same regionally proportionate basis that is used for electing the Standing Committee itself, but they serve in their own capacities as experts in the scientific areas required by the STRP's Work Plan and not as representatives of their countries. Resolutions VII.2 (San José, 1999) and X.9 (Changwon, 2008) modified the composition and modus operandi of the STRP, and Resolution XI.18 (Bucharest, 2012) further adjusted the Panel’s composition and its modus operandi.

In addition to the 13 individual STRP members and five invited experts, delegates from the five International Organization Partners -- BirdLife International, International Water Management Institute (IWMI), IUCN, Wetlands International, and WWF International -- represent their organizations as full members of the Panel. In addition, representatives of the 34 subsidiary bodies of other Multilateral Environment Agreements and non-governmental organizations and associations specified in Annex I to Resolution X1.18 are also invited to participate as permanent observers during each triennium, and representatives of other organizations are invited to participate in the work of the STRP as required by the nature of the tasks under study.

The Scientific and Technical Review Panel, 2013-2015

Royal Gardner, Chair of STRP	Christine Prietto, Vice-Chair of STRP

Members

See all bios here (PDF)
Dr Gueladio Cissé
Prof Reda Fishar
Dr Stanley Liphadzi
Dr Hiromi Yamashita
Prof Lijuan Cui
Dr Ritesh Kumar
Mr Lars Dinesen
Dr Matt Walpole
Dr Matthew McCartney
Mr Randy Milton
Dr Pierre Horwitz
Ms Christine Prietto
Prof Randy Thaman

Invited experts

See all bios here (PDF)
Mr David Stroud
Mr Dave Pritchard
Prof Max Finlayson
Dr Mike Acreman
Neotropical expert	(to be advised)

IOP members

See all bios here (PDF)
WI - Mr Stephan Flink
IWMI - Dr Sonali Senaratna
IUCN - Dr Patrick MacQuarrie
WWF - Mr Eugenio Barrios
BirdLife	(to be advised)

The STRP's Work Plan for each triennium is built around the priority tasks determined by the Standing Committee, which are based upon requests from the Conference of the Parties by means of its Strategic Plan and COP Resolutions and Recommendations. The STRP members and observers are assisted in their work by a network of STRP National Focal Points who advise them directly on STRP matters and provide a liaison between the STRP and the networks of other relevant experts within each of their countries. The STRP's Expert Working Groups and the National Focal Points communicate by means of electronic mail and Internet discussion groups.

The work of the STRP is further assisted by the STRP Support Service, which is operated by Wetlands International under contract with the Convention. The purpose of the Support Service is to provide the STRP Expert Working Groups and National Focal Points with additional contacts among the expert networks of the International Organization Partners and other groups, identify gaps in needed expertise and endeavor to fill them, assemble a clearinghouse of additional information resources for the tasks of the Work Plan, and facilitate communication amongst the Working Groups, the Focal Points, and other sources of expertise.

Related STRP documents are available here

Reports of STRP meetings are available here